What Is a Detox Drink?
A detox drink isn’t anything magical; it’s simply a beverage made with herbs, fruits, vegetables, vitamins, or minerals that help remove toxins from your body. These drinks can be juices, teas, smoothies, or even water. For the best results, use all organic ingredients and avoid adding refined sugar.
Different ingredients are more effective for detoxing specific organs like the liver, kidneys, and digestive system. I’ll share which homemade drinks work best for different organ systems and recommend some DIY drinks for cleansing toxic metals from your body and for weight loss.
Do Detox Drinks Work?
Detox drinks can positively impact your health, but they aren’t a magic solution. Whether you drink a tangy green juice every morning or follow a temporary diet to cleanse your body of toxins, detox drinks are just one tool to support your health journey.
Depending on your goals and how often you consume them, detox drinks can:
– Reduce fatigue
– Improve digestion
– Reduce occasional constipation
– Boost your immune system
– Flush out toxins
– Promote weight loss
– Improve overall health
– Nourish your body
Popular Detox Drinks
Detox drinks can include smoothies, green juices, teas, or the popular master cleanse lemonade drink. Learn more below.
Tea
Various types of tea can help you detoxify, including turmeric, lemongrass, marshmallow root, and milk thistle. Avoid herbal laxative teas containing Senna and Cascara, as they can be harsh and unsafe for the digestive system.
Two ingredients I recommend for detoxification are dandelion root and green tea leaves. You can make your own tea by buying ingredients or premade teabags from a natural health food store.
Dandelion Root Tea
Dandelion root has been used for centuries in Traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda to support liver and gallbladder health, a use confirmed by modern science. Dandelion also promotes bile and stomach acid production, so people with gallstones or ulcers should avoid it.
You can buy dandelion tea online or at a natural health store. Some stores sell dandelion root and leaf in bulk, allowing you to make your own tea. Combine it with marshmallow root and chamomile flower for a sweet flavor.
Green Tea
Green tea is known for its antioxidant properties, which counter damage to cells caused by toxins and pathogens. Drinking a tea or juice with high antioxidant properties helps your body detoxify.
Studies have found that green tea lowers bad (LDL) cholesterol and blood pressure. Matcha green tea powder has 100 times more antioxidants than plain green tea. While green tea is an infusion from the tea leaves, matcha powder is made by grinding up young green tea leaves, resulting in more detoxifying antioxidants. Matcha positively affects the kidney and liver.
Master Cleanse Lemonade
Lemons have powerful properties that assist the body in detoxing, helping cleanse the liver, kidneys, and colon. One of the most popular detox diets, the Master Cleanse, is lemonade made with cayenne pepper, organic lemons, and pure maple syrup. You can make the lemonade in single glasses or a large pitcher, but add the cayenne as needed to each glass to avoid bitterness.
Use two tablespoons of organic lemon juice, two tablespoons of organic grade B maple syrup (not the fake stuff), one-eighth teaspoon of cayenne pepper, and 10 ounces of distilled water. This is a juice-only cleanse; drink only this lemonade for 10 days. Afterward, transition off by drinking fresh-squeezed organic orange juice for one day, and then eating homemade vegan soup for two more days.
For the full effect, most Master Cleanse participants flush their body with sea salt water, which must be consumed on an empty stomach first thing in the morning. Add two teaspoons of sea salt (not iodized table salt) to one quart of warm water. It’ll take about 30 to 45 minutes to work, so be near a bathroom.
Green Juice
Green juice is popular among health enthusiasts. This healthy drink can start your day with a shot of antioxidants and nutrients, giving you energy for a positive day! I drink a delicious green juice almost every morning. I change it up based on what I have in the refrigerator, but a favorite includes fresh apples, lemon, parsley, celery, kale, cucumbers, ginger, and romaine lettuce. Drink it down in a couple of minutes for a super-boost of energy. I’ll give the recipe below.
Juicing concentrates the fresh, raw nutrients in the fruits and vegetables, giving you a quick shot of nutrition — far more than you could consume in the same period. Apples provide an all-natural sweetener, especially if you are not yet accustomed to the piquant taste of pure, all-vegetable green juice. Lemon juice also balances out flavors and provides excellent benefits for digestion, weight loss, and detoxifying the kidneys.
Making homemade juice is easy and convenient with a juicer. Although juicers can be a bit expensive, they are an excellent investment for your health.
Smoothies
Some people wonder why they should waste all the pulp that comes from the fruits and vegetables when you juice. If that’s you, try a smoothie instead of juice. Smoothies retain the fiber from fruits and vegetables.
Another trick is to save the pulp left from juicing, pack it into ice cube trays, and add frozen pulp cubes to smoothie recipes. If you are making smoothies for detoxing, do not add sugar. Instead, use fruit like bananas or berries to sweeten your smoothie.
What’s the Best Detox Drink?
If you want to cut to the chase and find out the best drink, read on. In a nutshell, water is the best way to detox, but there are a few ways to add flavor and additional cleansing properties to your water.
Pure Distilled Water
Truly, the best drink for detoxing is always water! Because tap water can be contaminated, using a proper water purification system is essential for your health. I recommend distilled water because the process by which it is made removes all contaminants; it is pure H2O. Distillation involves bringing water to a boil — which converts it to steam — and then sending the steam through cooling tubes where it condenses back into pure water. This process also removes all of the naturally occurring minerals, so you might need to supplement to get them back.
To keep all your organ systems working efficiently, I recommend that you drink at least eight glasses per day — especially if you are trying to detox. If you want to take it to the next level, try water fasting. I completed an 18-day water fast and created a series of videos, one per day, documenting my experience with it. I also drank hydrogen-infused water to ensure the greatest benefit during my fast. Studies show that water fasting slows aging, improves cell recycling, and promotes the body’s natural healing properties. It can also give you a flat belly and help you kick-start a lifestyle of healthier eating.
Purified Water With Apple Cider Vinegar
My favorite drink — I drink this all the time — is purified water with a splash of raw, organic, and unpasteurized apple cider vinegar (ACV) and a dash of Himalayan pink salt.
The vinegar adds a slightly tart and tangy taste to the water. Apple cider vinegar has incredible detoxification properties. It’s full of probiotics, has a powerful ability to resist all kinds of harmful organisms, and it helps normalize blood sugar levels. Distilled water with ACV — with or without added lemon juice — creates the perfect alkaline drink.
Detox Water
Detox water is just water infused with one or more fruits or vegetables, like watermelon, cucumber, or lemon. If you infuse your water with the right ingredients, you can detox while you hydrate. Always use distilled water. If you have to use tap water, purify it with a filter that removes toxins.
Watermelon Citrus Water
My favorite is watermelon citrus water. Watermelon has nutrients that make it ideal for detoxing your liver.
Pour 1 gallon of purified water in a glass pitcher (for best results)
Cube about 1 cup of fresh watermelon
Squeeze the juice of 1/2 lemon and 1/2 orange
Add 1 lemon wedge
Add 1 orange wedge
Add 5 to 8 cucumber slices to mellow the harsh citrus flavor
These drinks can be consumed before a meal or in place of a meal if you are intermittent fasting. There are many other delicious recipes.
Detox Drinks for Weight Loss
Many people are on the lookout for convenient ways to help them lose weight and they wonder if detox drinks will do that. The answer is that they absolutely can! However, it’s important to use detox drinks (and intermittent fasting) as a regular habit, not just a crash diet. Fasting and drastically reducing calories — which can be done by substituting a drink for one or more meals — have scientifically valid benefits.